


How to Celebrate Christmas -- Ninja-bot Style

by Sandnose



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Animated (2007)
Genre: AU Prowl's not dead, Christmas, Christmas on Cybertron, Drift has the Christmas spirit, Jazz is a great teacher, Post-Canon, Prowl is a Scrooge, Secret Solenoid, Secret Solenoid 2018, ninja business
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-10-05 21:05:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17332343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sandnose/pseuds/Sandnose
Summary: “Drift! Prowl! You’re never gonna believe what I found!”...“What is it, Jazz?” Drift asked with his optics focusing on the data pad in the other’s servos. “It’s an Earth tradition! A really groovy one at that; they’ve got songs, decorations, and – best of all – presents!”...“So humans celebrate this—what is it called?"...“They call it…Christmas!”





	How to Celebrate Christmas -- Ninja-bot Style

**Author's Note:**

> This is my (hella late) piece for Secret Solenoid. My gift is for Mel, and I really hope you enjoy this!
> 
> This is just meant to be a fun and cute lil' story about Ninja-bots having a good time and spreading the Christmas spirit. I definitely do not own Hasbro, Transformers, nor any of the Christmas movies mentioned in the story (but I do love all for those things!)
> 
> This was the tutorial Jazz and Drift followed to celebrate Christmas: https://www.wikihow.com/Celebrate-Christmas

###  ****

PROMPT: TFA – Prowl, Jazz, Drift – Ninja Business (with a Holiday Twist!)

“Drift! Prowl! You’re never gonna believe what I found!”

Jazz’s excited calls echoed through the halls of the Cyber-Ninja Dojo, quickly followed by the pounded of his peds. He came to a halt when he found his friends struggling to maintain their meditation amidst all of his ruckus. Drift regarded him with a curious glance while Prowl tried his best to ignore the interruption.

“What is it, Jazz?” Drift asked with his optics focusing on the data pad in the other’s servos.

“It’s an Earth tradition! A really groovy one at that; they’ve got songs, decorations, and – best of all – presents!” 

The younger Ninja-bot’s faceplates light up at the mention of festivities as he broke his posture to give Jazz his full attention. Prowl scowled ever so slightly as he continued to try and concentrate.

“So humans celebrate this—what is it called?”

“They call it…Christmas!” Jazz could not contain his own enthusiasm about the holiday, and the glee was seemingly contagious.

Prowl bared his dente in frustration, pulled himself to his peds with a huff, and stamped off to continue his meditation in his private quarters. Drift looked after him questioningly, Jazz following his gaze.

“Humans have a name for bots like that too: ‘Scrooges’. It has something to do with some sort of character in their literary records.” Jazz explained at Drift’s inquisitive look.

“Where do we begin in celebrating this holiday, Jazz?” the other bot asked, optics bright with excitement.

“Well, it just happens that the technorganic Sari provided me with a list, called **‘How to Celebrate Christmas’**. It seems to be very thorough, so I think we should be able to execute the plans flawlessly!”

With that, both bots set off to prepare the rest of the dojo for this ‘Earth Christmas’, whether the dojo was ready or not…

* * *

“Here, I want to read the list again!” the eager Ninja-bot piped up as he and Jazz walked down the hall of the dojo.

“Woah, easy little bot.” he chuckled lightly, “I’ve got it committed to my memory core, so I promise we won’t miss a step.”

“Well then what are doing now?”

“We have to ‘Decorate your house for Christmas’. By ‘house’ they mean ‘dojo’.” Jazz supplied at Drift’s perplexed look.

“How are we supposed to do that?”

Jazz produced a holoimage from his forearm that displayed several examples of human Christmas decorations.

“Jazz, are you sure that Master Yoketron would approve of this?” Drift looked a bit nervous as he looked at the other, who had to genuinely consider the question for a moment.

“He would want us to gain something from the experience, and if we can implement our training into our activities, perhaps he will see the benefit of celebrating.”

A smile spread across Drift’s face and his engine revved. “I think I can think of a few ways…”

* * *

A white blur was flying up and down the halls of the Cyber-Ninja Dojo, leaving trains of glistening green metal along the walls in its wake. Dai Atlas was unfortunate to be caught in the bot’s path, winding up being wound up in the makeshift tinsel. Drift threw a quick apology to the grumbling fencer as he headed back to the heart of the dojo to meet back up with Jazz.

The Ninja-bot was hard at work on the Christmas tree he had crafted – out of scrap metal and pure ninja skills, Drift assumed. Ornaments of bright reds, greens and golds flew past his faceplates as the older bot threw them into the tree with expert precision.

“Pretty sweet, if I do say so myself.” he reflected with a smile as he admired his work.

“Oh no! It’s missing something in the picture!” Jazz approached where the young bot was pointing urgently at the top of the tree in the holoimage on the data pad in his servo.

“According to Sari, they call it a ‘star’—oh yeah, I totally agree that it does not really look like a star.” he added when the other gave him a perplexed look. “I made one, but figured you’d like to do the honors. They call them ‘Christmas Traditions’, they’re kind of like special ways of doing things; not always necessary and almost never practical, but they sure are fun!”  
Drift was physically vibrating with excitement as Jazz handed him the tree topper, and literally bounced off of the walls to make it up to the top of the hulking structure. When he had made sure the ‘star’ was secure, he settled beside Jazz to admire their work.

But only for a moment.

“So, what’s next on the list!” he asked excitedly.

“Well, the list calls for ‘caroling’ and ‘movies’, both of those are human activities. The caroling involves vocalizing musically for whoever you come across, and there are special songs designated for Christmas too. I’ve never tried it myself, but I’ll send you a couple audio files of examples I found. As for movies, all you have to do is watch them—”

“Like holovids?” Drift’s optics were simply aglow with all of the things that Jazz was sharing with him, so the older bot chose to not be stung by the interruption.

“Yeah, just like holovids! Bumblebee and Sari decided to help us out and make a list of ‘Christmas movies’ that they recommend we watch. We can go do it in my habsuite on my viewport.”

* * *

The two settled down for what turned out to be several hours worth of viewing. 

They both laughed at many of the films, finding _Elf_ and _Christmas Vacation_ to be particularly humorous. Jazz really liked the music in _The Polar Express_ – not to mention “that groovy train” that had Jazz in awe of what humans were capable of. Drift particularly liked _The Nutcracker_ , mainly for it’s movements – “Who would have known humans can be so articulate with their frames!” – but he was also a fan of the ‘earth music’.

Neither of them quite really understood why Bee and Sari would have put _Die Hard_ on the list, but decided to just chalk it up to the two troublemakers just being their usual selves.

Not one of the bots cried at the end of _The Grinch_ , swear on their sparks.

* * *

“You know, another thing that humans do to celebrate around the holidays is throw Christmas parties.” Jazz said from where he was busy wrapping some of the presents they had gotten to give to the others in the dojo – every part of their Christmas preparation was coming straight from Sari’s sources, which consequently meant that they made their presents look just like the one in the images.

“Oh yeah? How do you do one of those?” Drift asked as he sealed up some of their ‘wrapping paper’ around the energon cubes they deemed to be “both festive and culturally appropriate”, as Sari advised them to make some changes so that Christmas could really work on Cybertron. 

“We will invite everyone in the dojo and some of our other friends, gather them all in the center of the dojo with our tree and give them our gifts.” Jazz explained with excitement on his own faceplates now. “We can have energon treats, sing some Christmas carols, and play some of those Christmas movies!”

Drift could almost see it all now, and he could not wait to get started on the next task on their list…

* * *

A few Solar Cycles before the party was planned to commence, Jazz and Drift were busy attaching invitations to the habsuite doors of everyone in the dojo. Jazz had sent invitations to Team Prime via their personal feeds, and all had responded promptly – with just as much excitement as the Ninja-bot at that.

All except one.

Prowl was in a meditative state when there was a light knocking on his habsuite door. He bared his dente lightly in frustration, having gotten Jazz’s message earlier. And promptly ignoring it; he was not about to participate in some crazy human celebration for no reason whatsoever. 

When he allowed the door to be opened and prepared his vocalizer to scold Jazz for not respecting his wishes, he stopped the words where they formed. A nervous looking Drift was the one standing in the older bot’s place.

“Hey Prowl.” he paused to take an intake. “I wanted to invite you to the Christmas party Jazz and I are putting on. The rest of your old team will be there, so Jazz thought you would like to come and see them.”

Prowl could see through this tactic, he would honestly be surprised if Jazz thought he would not, and downright ashamed if he had fallen for it. “Why didn’t Jazz come to speak with me about this himself?”

“He knew you wouldn’t listen to him. And we’re trying to use this holiday to help boost my training, so he said that that includes this…”

“Fine then say your piece.” Prowl could not tell what Jazz was trying to help Drift gain from all of this ‘Christmas’ scrap, but he could see the motivation behind trying to get the young Ninja-bot to speak to him one-on-one.

Drift took a slow, deep intake before he squared his shoulder pauldrons. “Jazz and I have worked really hard to try and organize this holiday celebration. We thought it would be a great way to get everyone together in the dojo, and your old friends too. We’re all so busy with training all of the time that we never seem to just take a Nanoklik to try and relax. If Jazz has taught me anything in my training, it’s that pausing and enjoying the moment is just as important as any training will ever be. Especially since the Decepticons have been stopped, again, there really isn’t a need to train so hard – I know they could still be a threat, but you have to agree that sometimes we’re training as if Megatron might assemble right on the dojo’s stoop.

“This Christmas also helps the humans to take time out of their busy little lives to get back in touch with the things they like most about their existence, and the ones that are the dearest to their sparks. Christmas is a time to remind everyone around you that you love them, and it is also a time to remind _yourself_ that you can do that without the world coming to an end.” Drift paused a moment, optics shuttering closed as he appeared to concentrate acutely on his next words.

“We– I would really appreciate it if you would come to our party. Please…”

Prowl let the young one’s words really sink in. Wow, he never knew that it really meant this much to Drift. Sure, Jazz could be fun-loving and all, but Drift was truly a dedicated student and tried to keep his optics focused on his training to become the best Autobot he could be – despite both Jazz and Prowl telling him to never feel as though he had something to prove in regard to his loyalties. But to see how deeply this celebration was affecting the other really did strike a chord with the older Ninja-bot.

“Alright. I’ll go.” Drift’s faceplates were nearly glowing with the sheer excitement that those words filled him with. “But only for a little while…” Prowl added at the expression, but Drift could tell his bluff.

Drift left Prowl with the mini-projector that displayed the digital invitation and sped down the hall humming Christmas carols as he went. Prowl waited to give an amused smile after the youngster was clear of his habsuite.

* * *

The party was in full swing. A bunch of bots from the dojo were mingling with the members of Team Prime. Bumblebee and Bulkhead were fully engrossed in the Christmas movies being projected onto the wall. Optimus and Sentinel were chuckling together over their glasses of high grade as they watched Jetfire and Jetstorm entertain themselves with the Christmas carols that Jazz had shared with them. Ratchet was nursing his own container of high grade (complete with his own personal minerals, because “nobody knows how to make a good cube of high grade anymore!”).

Jazz was busy skating around the scene tending to his guests, but he looked up when he saw a door slide open out of the corner of his optic. His faceplates broke into a soft smile as Prowl walked through it. Drift was on the older mech is a flash.

“I knew you’d come, I just _knew_ you’d come!” he chirped excitedly as he practically took the Ninja-bot down with his enthusiastic embrace.

“Of course I kept my obligation.” Prowl replied nonchalantly as his visor-covered optics took in all of the activity in the room. He might not have admitted it outwardly, but he was very pleased to see his old teammates again – the first time since their time on Earth.

Jazz shooed the young student off of his friend and slung a servo across is shoulders. “Merry Christmas, Prowler.” he said with a smile.

The other smirked in response. “Yes Jazz, Merry Christmas.”


End file.
